


He Thought He Was Reckless

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Injury, Caretaker Dean Winchester, Castiel (Supernatural) Whump, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Inspired by Art, M/M, Season/Series 14, Soft Dean Winchester, such a Soft Boy!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 14:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16536824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: Cas settles back and rolls his head on the seat. Tugs on the corner of Dean’s jacket.Sits there. Pathetic-looking and unnecessarily bleeding.(a.k.a.: Dean is a super Soft Boy.)





	He Thought He Was Reckless

You know that playback thing, they do in movies? Something horrible is happening, or the main character is freaking the fuck out and they show you something they showed you earlier in the movie. A big flashing sign pointing to why someone goes wild, loses their shit, kills everyone in the room. Or starts shaking, curls up in a ball and just weeps their damn eyes out.

Trauma.

Dean’s been trained to review those flash situations in his head. But it was always like rewinding the tape and updating the playbook. Defense tactics: Trying to find out what he did wrong so he won’t get blindly attacked on the right side unexpectedly by a lefty. Offensive tactics: So he remembers exactly when a vamp drops his fangs and manages to lash forward first.

Dad trained them to do it. Never considered overexposure or repeated trauma a problem – _lack of analysis_ was.

He had them sweep a house and ‘killed’ Sam from a corner he never checked so many times that Sam cried in frustration. And then Dad replayed every moment of his attack on Sam. Showed him how bloody and splayed and useless he would be. Showed him how getting dead would only mean Dean had nobody to cover his six and he’d be dead, too.

He explained it in gory detail. He made it horrific. He scared Sam into understanding.

Just like he’d done to Dean, when Dean started coming on hunts.

And afterward, you count your bullets. How many you have left. It teaches you to be conservative. Teaches you to aim better and need fewer shots.

Afterward, you buy a slim knife to conceal in your boot because you were just in a last-resort fight and if it weren’t for a solid iron nail wielded in a broken table leg, you wouldn’t be alive.

Afterward, you see all the deep red and purple in your face, all the blood pounded to the surface, and you learn to block better on that side.

You replay the fight, the trauma, the horror, and you learn.

That didn’t stop after Stull. He replayed Sam falling backwards, down, down, down, down again, and he didn’t learn shit. But he kept replaying it. Kept imagining a version of the day where he wasn’t so beat down. Where he could have crawled to the side of the hole and grabbed Sam’s leg.

Where he could have tripped to the side of that gaping chasm and thrown himself in, too.

He didn’t learn shit from that. But you keep replaying and changing your moves because you don’t want to be predictable and you don’t want to get rusty and you want to know when your senses or your reflexes start failing you, at this age.

Dean’s got no idea why Cas is letting him do this.

He’s using a damp washcloth to clean the wounds on his ear and his cheek and his nose. He’s letting Dean pull little crystals of glass out of his hair.

If he gave Cas six seconds alone, he’d turn around and find him fully recovered. Cas could fix himself in a blink.

But he’s sitting on the motel bed, letting Dean do this. His hands work as he blindly replays the explosion and the fight and reviews all the angles. Cas lets him do this mindlessly and without complaint.

Lets Dean clean him up.

Dean blinks at his own hands, hesitating for the first time.

Cas holds the trash bin up a little higher.

Dean pitches a deadly little shard in the can and resumes picking them out.

He doesn’t know why Cas came back to him after being sent to The Empty. No one can really figure it out. It was Jack calling for him or Cas just being annoying or Chuck fixing it or maybe even Amara.

Cas had a theory, once, that it was punishment. Every time it got worse when he was brought back to life and he just keeps getting sent back as a kind of torture.

It makes Dean a little sick. He breathes through his nose for a few beats and tries to get through the replay again. This one has a new ending: Cas being killed again, sent to The Empty again, rejected again, and sent back down to them even more tattered than ever. Even more tired. More sick of seeing their faces.

He could have gotten Cas killed today and, look. He’s just got no idea why Cas even still _puts up with him_ at this point, let alone why he still fights beside him.

It’s easier to swallow down the fear, pitch another piece of glass, and say, “Fucking klutz. This is gonna take hours.”

That didn’t come out sounding right, though. He sounded a little too choked-up and not much like he was fooling either of them.

Cas’s hand comes to his hip.

It stops the both of them dead in place.

Then he reaches down beside the bed to the cooler and fishes a beer out and uncaps it. Puts his head right back in place under Dean’s hands, but offers the bottle up to him.

After a pause, Dean takes it by the neck to pull a long drink.

Cas takes it again and holds it. Waits for him to get back to work.

Even though he could do it himself, in an instant. Even though he doesn’t need help to pull the glass out, wipe the blood off, sew up the slices in his coat.

“Well. Stop if you’re tired of it,” Cas says. Shrugs without moving his head even a little. “But thank you. I just need you to take care of my dumb ass sometimes.”

That’s it.

He holds still and lets Dean keep working on him. For no good reason at all.

Dean pauses at one point. Flicks his good ear. “I’m the only one who gets to call you dumbass, dumbass.”

Glass thumps into the trash can and occasionally Cas passes his beer back up.

«»

He totally gets caught the next time.

No matter how unruffled they all know he is, Cas still looks a little fucking winded from being thrown through a wall by a demigod. Sam is sending a hostage off with her parents and Dean sets Cas down in the back seat of the car. He didn’t need help to get there, but he took it.

He doesn’t need Dean to push his hair back from disarray, but lets him do it, regardless.

His vessel is bleeding from the shoulder and mouth, but he’d be fine in the time it took just to shrug. He could mend it.

Instead, he lets Dean help him out of his coat. He lets Dean use a wad of fast food napkins to mop the blood from his chin and lip.

He lets Dean look at the gash on his shoulder, ripping down the front of his chest.

Dean pushes him to sit back and rest and ducks in to ball up his coat and have him lean back and rest his h-

“Dude,” Sam says, leans on the open car door. “Let him breathe. Give him a minute. He’ll be fine.” He nods towards the mess of the office building. “We gotta fuck up the rest of this office so the summoning can’t be replicated by some bozo with the local CSI. C’mon.”

Caught out, Dean reels between getting defensive and scrambling to look like that’s what he was doing-

“A bozo like you?” Cas fires back. “Who sticks their nose into everything, trying to figure it out, even when it isn’t their business?”

Sam slowly cocks his head. Stretches his other arm out to the side of the car, effectively trapping Dean where he’s sprawled, cornering them.

“None of my business?” Sam frowns. Nods. “Huh.”

Sam looks between them.

Dean looks between Sam and Cas.  
Dean throws his hands up, Not Guilty of anything, thank you.

Cas literally fucking glares Sam down until he backs off.

Sam tap-tap-taps his fingers along the door and turns and wanders back to the building.

Slowly. Whistling.

Dean watches him.

“The fuck was that about?” he turns to ask.

Cas settles back and rolls his head on the seat. Tugs on the corner of Dean’s jacket.

Sits there. Pathetic-looking and unnecessarily bleeding.

He tugs on the corner of Dean’s jacket again and sighs.

Looking tired.

Dean’s sympathetic reaction is overblown. He ducks back in and straightens the coat behind Cas’s head and cards his unruly hair back into place and all Cas has to do is whimper a little and he kneels on the corner of the seat to settle him in and press a towel to his bleeding shoulder and hush him and get him comfortable. Cautions him before closing the door and keeping him locked safe inside the Impala.

He walks back to the building, knowing he didn’t need to do any of that.

And hungrily replaying every moment of it in his head.

Cas swaying into his hands, letting him help. Letting himself be comforted.

Dean doesn’t endure Sam’s teasing when he gets back to the conference room where Sam is destroying the giant table that had all the sigils carved underneath.

“Made sure he’s comfy?” Sam brings his hatchet down into the wood. “Cozy?” he chops again.

“He’s whammied,” Dean snaps. “The fight did a number on him.”

“Sure it did,” Sam agrees lightly, not agreeing at all.

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Dean starts stacking various pieces of furniture to burn along with the scraps of the table.

“Nothing. I just know everything. Per usual.” He chops at the table some more.

“ _I just know everything, per uuuuusual_ ,” Dean imitates. “Real fucking smug for someone who owes me fifty bucks for this being a _demigod_ and not a demon.” And someone who apparently didn’t remember there’s a bigger ax in the trunk, but Dean’s gonna let him keep swinging his _tiny hatchet_ for maybe an hour before he goes and gets it himself.

Snot-nosed brat.

«»

Cas comes home with Jack practically fucking _flying_ through the halls, sprinting to tell everyone the cool hunt he was on and how they nabbed the bad guy and how everybody got home okay and how excited he was that he got to try a new ice cream joint on the way back to the bunker.

It’s exhausting just to hear him recount it over and over again as different members of the team swing by to see what all the commotion is about. But when Cas arrives, dumping himself in a nearby chair, looking much worse for wear, it’s even more tiring.

Dean listens until Jack restarts his tale when Mom comes into the room.

He gets up and plucks at Cas’s jacket. Waits for him to haul himself up and follow.

Dean leads him to the kitchen. Digs through the freezer and pulls out... amazing. An _actual freezer pack_ instead of a bag of peas that he can put over his bruised eye.

“Hold this here,” Dean instructs.

Cas settles to a lean against the counter and does what he says.

“Got the bad guy, huh?” he wets a fresh kitchen towel and comes back to get the dried, flaking blood from the corner of Castiel’s eye, down his neck, to his collar.

“Yes. Jack is getting more adept with use of the blade. The shotgun? Not so much.”

Dean snorts a laugh. “Still kickin’ him to the floor?”

Cas grumbles. “And then some.”

“Any sign of his powers coming back?”

“No.” Cas hesitates, looking a bit concerned. “I’m not sure what’s going on there. He can heal a little faster than normal. But. He isn’t acting... I’m not sure. I’m not sure what’s going on,” he repeats, at a loss.

“Well,” Dean sighs – too close; he can feel his hot breath rebound from Cas’s skin. “We always figure it out.”

“We tend to,” he agrees. He switches hands, holding the ice pack, so Dean can wipe up the blood better. “Anyway. It’s a relief being home. Or it was. Kind of... crowded around here, these days.”

“Fuckin’ tell me about it,” Dean gripes a little. Pulls his hand down, now, so he can look at the cut next to his eye. It’s actually a little further up, into his brow. A hard impact. Probably would have crushed his skull if not for the grace. “Lemme tape this up. Let’s go to a bar or something.”

“Movies?” Cas shrugs.

“Or a movie,” Dean agrees. “Not crazy about anything that’s out right now, but I could go for a big red slushee and I don’t really care what flavor of red it is.”

“Red flavor.” Cas brings his hand up, blood on it from where he must have mindlessly wiped at the gash in his head. “I think I’m red-flavored right now.” Cas smiles and this dumb thing occurs to Dean.

He leans in just a little and licks right under the wound, near his eye, not really wanting to taste the salt and copper of it, but suddenly thinking it’s hilarious.

“You are. Maybe you should do a blue flavor when we get there. Switch it up a little,” Dean jokes.

It’s.  
It’s not funny.  
Dean stops smiling.

Cas doesn’t laugh. He goes from humorous to...  
To Dean doesn’t know what. Not wide-eyed, not mad. Not annoyed or angry.

That was.  
That was _weird_.  
“Okay, that was weird,” Dean nods.

Cas stares at him intensely for one more moment.

Before.

Before _pouting_.

“You don’t like my flavor?” he looks truly bummed about it.

“No, I mean. I meant it was weird that I. That I um.” Dean shakes his head. “No, your flavor is fine. It’s good.”

“Good?”

“Good.” They’re whispering. Dean doesn’t know why they’re whispering.

The flavor on Dean’s tongue is skin. Tap water from the towel. The suddenly-dry inside of his own mouth. Something far beyond that, familiar and known but unnamable.

Cas is looking at him. This falsely-sad, kinda pouty, beat-down look.

God. God! Why is he a _total fucking sucker_ for that look? He keeps doing stupid things for that look. He keeps-

“Gonna patch you up and then get going, huh? We’ll sneak out. Just for the afternoon.”

Cas gives him a small, private grin.

They hear someone approaching and Dean nods, grabs him by the arm and hauls him out of there.

They get to his room and shut themselves in. Nobody saw them.

They grin together, like they’re getting away with something.

Cas must forget not to heal himself. The butterfly bandages are holding clean skin by the time they get out of the movie, but they both pretend not to notice.

«»

It’s for real this time.

It’s _too real_ this time.

And it ain’t Dean who got Cas hurt. It wasn’t Cas being heroic. It wasn’t Jack being earnest. It wasn’t normal dumbass stuff.

It was an ancient weapon Heaven made to use against its own disobedient soldiers. And all Dean can think of is how stupid he was to assume Naomi was the only weapon they’d use against their own kind.

There are jails in Heaven. There were Specialists in Heaven. There used to be all kinds of angels with the power to keep their brethren in order, so why wouldn’t there have been other weapons?

Much like the drills shot into their brains made angels speak and opened their minds to influence, the Thorns were made to wrap around an angel, sink into them, and expose them. Hurt them until the message got across. It was used on the battlefield to make a public display of a soldier’s great mistakes so they weren’t repeated by others of their rank. Like flogging someone who went AWOL so the whole brigade knows it isn’t tolerated.

Cas is wounded deep. The demon roped him around the neck with the lash of Thorns and dragged him.

In the struggle, his head and neck caught it worst. His hands are beat up from trying to pry it off.

Now that the demon’s dead, Dean crouches into the corner where they’d made Cas sit and hide.

He reaches slowly, touching his skin and pulling the collars of his coat and shirt away.

“Hey, buddy.” He purposely doesn’t flinch or cringe at the sight of the mess. “No big deal. You’re gonna be fine. Can you heal this?”

His neck must hurt too much to shake his head. He winces. His wounded mouth and throat can’t seem to get the word out. But Dean’s guessing that word is ‘no.’

“No biggie, alright? We’ll get you home. Rest you up. You’ll be fine. Okay?” He doesn’t take no for an answer to that one, just scoots back a little and starts handling him up, pulling him from the ground and getting them both standing.

It’s worse in the light.

If he were human, he’d have bled out. The vessel isn’t faring well, but it’s probably only holding together because the Thorns were meant as a punishment, not a death sentence.

Sam has carefully gathered it up into an emptied-out duffel and comes to meet them in the hall. The college is going to need a new indoor basketball court after their battle and they do really need to leg it before the campus cops arrive, but Sam is handling the golden rope of Thorns and staring at one of the spikes, fascinated. He stops under one of the lights that hadn’t blown out.

“There are sigils stamped into each one,” he reports. They’re hefty and gold-tipped. Each Thorn a little bigger than a standard house key, long and jagged and protruding through either side of the rope at varied intervals. Except for the fancy tips, the metal of each appears to be the same used in the angel blades.

Punish, _not kill_. The sigil-stamped gold keeps them from being lethal. Probably makes them even more painful for it.

Cas leans heavy on him when he regains his feet.

“Sam,” Dean snaps him out of his inspection and he stuffs the rest of the Thorns into the bag, zips it up, and comes to Cas’s other side. They both carry him to the car. He seems sapped of all his energy. It’s possible the Thorns did a number on his grace, even without being wrapped around his whole body.

Castiel’s grace wasn’t in the best condition in the first place, so this theory has Dean seriously worried. They pile Cas into the back seat and Sam doesn’t even ask, reaching into Dean’s jacket for the car keys before loading the trunk back up and closing the doors to get driving.

Dean eases Cas into the middle of the back bench and pulls the last door shut behind himself before settling Cas to a sit.

He reaches over the seat to the glove box for a pad of paper and a pen. Sits back so Sam stops eyeing him and starts fucking driving, gets on the highway.

He props the pen up in Cas’s less-wounded hand and keeps the paper on his own knee. “You need something, you tell me, alright? Any idea how we can counteract the sigils?”

Over the bumpy road, Cas shakily writes: **Dress wounds – will heal in time.**

“Okay. Okay, we’ll stitch you up.” He aims to find Sam’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. “I think it said the next rest stop is in 27 miles. We need it, alright?”

Sam just nods and revs it.

He feels the pen as Cas writes something else. It begins as a list: **Goldenseal, lemongrass, coconut...**

A bunch of stuff. Some thinks he knows and other herbs he’s only ever heard Sam list off from a book before. He ends it by writing **TEA** and circling it.

“Tea. We make this tea and it will help you?”

Cas gestures at his throat.

“Got it. Okay. Got it. I think I know where at least half those things are. You can’t like. Like, um. Sleep? Force your vessel to sleep and heal up or something?”

He doesn’t respond, really, but from his expression it’s clear that he wishes he _could_ do something so simple.

He lists down in the seat a little and Dean presses closer to support him, sit him up. He reaches to cushion Cas’s head on his shoulder over the distance of the rumbling old highway. “I gotcha,” he whispers. “You’re alright. We’ll have Sammy hit the books when we get home. Maybe find something to heal you up faster. And I’ll tell you what – I’m melting that piece of shit weapon down and fucking _pawning_ the gold. I don’t want that thing anywhere _near you_ again.”

Cas wriggles his hand back out and writes: **Tks.**

It’s all fun and games until Cas is really hurt, like, _for real_ , you know? He takes the pen and puts it in Cas’s jacket pocket for him and keeps his hand out, picks the stray, flaky old gold threads of the Thorns’ whip from some of the open wounds, there.

Cas endures it until he squirms and tries to burrow into Dean’s side and pull his hands away, hiding them for some relief.

He can’t be blamed – he just doesn’t wanna hurt anymore. Dean knows that. But the wounds are gonna have to be clean before they wrap them, and that shit is gonna be hard enough under the orange glow of the shoddy street lamps at the rest stop, here in the deep-dark, middle of the night, middle of the highway, far from the sanitary conditions of home.

“I know,” he lets Cas have a minute. Pets his hair back. “I know.” But he pulls again, splays his hand back out and keeps working, even when a noise of pain finally escapes Cas’s broken throat.

Sam helps, when they get to the rest area. He holds the supplies, passes over each as requested, and keeps a flashlight lit above their heads, aimed at Dean’s hands as he works.

He’s not teasing this time, when Dean whispers encouragement to Cas. He just helps. He just hands Dean the floss to sew shut the wounds and he doesn’t comment when Cas struggles away after an hour of having his skin picked at and sewn together.

Poor guy just needs a breath. He’s held up to torture worse than this, but none of them want him to be in pain just to get healing.

Cas may recognize it as necessary, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less. So Sam clicks off the flashlight, forcing Dean to pause for a while, and shuts them back in the car for a minute to go take a call from Mom.

Dean takes deep breaths with Cas. Lets him rest for a moment. His head too stiff on his neck to ragdoll in the other direction, Dean brings him to lean on his shoulder once more.

Cas shakily pulls the needle out of Dean’s fingers and takes Dean’s hand, places it on his own neck.

Dean gets the message and holds his hand there, just body warmth and a soft touch. Just something nice for a little while before he has to be in pain again.

From experience, Dean knows that can feel like a kind of healing, too. Just a warm hand spanning where you’re hurt. Just someone there who cares.

They watch Sam wander towards the vending machines.

When Dean breathes, it ruffles Cas’s hair.

Sam is safe and Cas might not be in one piece, but he is here, in their car, and safe, too.

That’s all he can ask for, sometimes. Sometimes that’s all Dean gets. All that allows him to sleep at night. Knowing his people are safe and generally okay.

He wedges his arm behind Cas and hauls him in and holds him for a while. Until Sam nods and nods and hangs up. Digs for his wallet and starts searching the machines for something.

Cas tries to fist an aching hand in his shirt, knowing Dean will have to start again.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, regretting it already.

He reaches to turn Cas’s face up, gently.

“Sorry.”

He understands. Dean doesn’t need paper and pen or any words at all to know what Cas is thinking.

He’d rather _not_ have more stiches. But he does understand why they’re doing this and that it will be over soon. He understands that Dean’s doing his best in a shit situation.

Dean’s so sorry. It isn’t anyone’s fault but a dead demon’s but he’s still so sorry.

He kisses Cas’s head. Pries Cas’s hand from his shirt and stops short of kissing over the bandage. By the stare they get locked into, in that moment, he’s pretty sure Cas can tell he was going to, anyway.

Sam comes back with a couple sodas and Dean pounds half of his right away, to get some caffeine and wake him up. To get his head screwed on straight and make this happen fast.

It doesn’t last any longer than it absolutely has to.

«»

Jack has gone missing.

When they get back, they hear about his escape. He was acting weird. Acting ill. And then he ran, wanting revenge on Michael more, now, than ever before. Mom went to follow and reports are that she’s hot on his tail.

Cas panics. He can’t say anything, still, but he grabs for Dean’s jacket and shakes him. Scrambles for his pen but Sam stops him.

“You can’t go, Cas. You’ve gotta give yourself time. You aren’t going up against anyone, like this. You have to give it time, man,” he grabs Cas by his shoulder and physically hauls him to one of the library chairs.

Betraying himself, he practically collapses, looking helpless.

“We’ll go with Mom. If she loses his trail, we get her to stop and we’ll find him together. Just keep your phone on. I promise we’ll call.” He rattles Cas by the shoulder before snagging two of the kids from Bobby’s group to come with. Dean didn’t realize until that moment he wasn’t a part of the team Sam planned on assembling.

The other two are Jack’s friends and they wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let them.

They’ll have to stop him, instead.

Dean’s gut is turning him towards the garage. His gut _always_ tells him he has to go with Sammy.

But something drags him to a stop, this time, and he turns back to Cas. Crouches next to his chair.

“Hey.”

Cas barely looks at him, defeated. Probably feeling useless. Probably knowing he’s getting left behind.

Dean was gonna say exactly that, too. He was gonna tell him to sit tight and-

And you know what? Cas has stayed back on babysitting duty so damn much. Cas has sat out on fights and tried to stay below Michael’s radar. Cas has been cautious and helped their people heal.

Cas has watched them go. Been angry about it, but kept the lid on.

“By the way-” Sam ducks back around the corner. Holds his hand up, jingling the car keys. “You’re not invited.” He points at Dean. “Sit. Stay.” He orders. And disappears. And there’s the distant commotion of guns being loaded and people heading to their cars.

Dean bristles. “I wasn’t gonna anyway!!” he shouts to nobody at all.

Turns back to Cas.

His face says, _Yes, you were._

“Was not,” Dean insists.

Cas rolls his eyes and drags out his pen and paper. He writes on the arm of the chair, his hands more unwieldy now they’re both in bandages: **Tracking spell. I could-**

Dean takes the paper from him, shakes his head. “Nah. Nope. You’re sitting this one out.” He rises and pulls Cas from the chair. “Come on. Need you in the kitchen.”

They divert to his room for a minute to kick off their shoes and hang up their coats. Dean makes him put on something that isn’t stained, handing him an old See Rock City t-shirt he had to steal one day when he was bleeding from the gut in Tennessee.

Cas can’t quite climb into it and he looks sad and pathetic trying. Dean pulls one of his fake-fed shirts from the closet, instead, and buttons it up for him. It makes him look a little more like himself, anyway. Cas watches, then surveys his broken hands that couldn’t even pull the jacket from his body or help Dean get his shirt on.

Dean lets him mope for a minute. Digs the cell phone out of his coat and turns up the volume. Pockets it. “In case Jack calls for you, okay?”

Cas nods. Somehow smaller without his shoes and vulnerable without his jacket.

He looks lost. He looks hurt and sad.

It’s like before. When he’d fake it and they were playing some weird roles out; when he almost wondered if maybe Cas was just kind of a brat sometimes and didn’t mind getting all of Dean’s attention and was being a troublemaker just ‘cause he had time on his hands and he’s seen Sam make damn puppy-dog faces that make a total pushover out of him. Just noticed Dean has a stupid soft-spot for his family and with the right combo of whining and pleading they can play him like a fiddle.

But now he’s not trying to play wounded, he just _is_. And Dean is resisting the pull, but it’s ten times worse.

He carefully gathers Cas’s hands and pulls him close. “Hey,” he says again. “You’ll be alright. You know you will. If it takes time, it takes time. We can research while we’re here. We can find out how to get you better, faster. Let’s go make you that tea, huh? That’ll work some, right?”

He can nod a little, now, even with his new collar of bandages crowding up his throat. He does so and falls forward a bit and Dean leans in so Cas can rest at his shoulder. He leans in and he comes forward and he scoops Cas close. He hugs him gently and strokes down his side.

Another sad noise escapes Castiel’s throat and Dean’s _entirely_ gone. Holds him tighter and sways a little. Changes his plans for the day and mindlessly presses a kiss between Cas’s eyes.

He stops himself before he goes further, but Cas’s hands try to grab at his shirt again and Dean doesn’t go.

He doesn’t go and he doesn’t let go.

«»

Mary isn’t here. He would feel guilty about this if she were.

He knows, now, that she got her soup from a can. And he doesn’t mean any disrespect on her, present-tense or memory, but while she was long gone and dead, he spent years trying to replicate the tomato rice soup she’d make him and he perfected it. Or at least his vague memory of it.

If she were here, he might not make it at all. Or it might come from a box or a can. But without her here, he does it from scratch. While it’s building flavor on the stove, he works with Cas to portion out the herbs for his tea.

They eat soup and they have the nasty tea. Dean sips some with him and... yikes, but okay.

It takes them a while. Cas looks a little better when they leave the kitchen. It’ll still take some time to heal. And they have to hit the books.

But if he were anyone else, Dean would want him to rest. For now, he just wants to sit on the couch with him and binge watch a show. If he can’t be out there on the hunt with everyone else, he wants to actively get Cas better. The three Rs: rest and research and _Mr. Robot_.

It turns out to be a bad idea from the jump.

First he’s twitching at their phones with every peep.

And there are several _peeps_ from Cas’s phone because, it turns out, he’s following a bunch of damn Twitter accounts.

“Oh, what, it takes you three days to answer a text from me, but you want to know what Captain America has to say on an hourly basis?”

Cas glares and yanks the phone from this hand, smiling over Chris Evans’ posts.

Dean sighs. “Nice. Good to know where I stand.”

Cas reaches to chug the rest of his second cup of tea. Clears his throat. “He’s a nice person who doesn’t abide assholes. I admire that.” He sounds like hell, but it really is good to hear him again.

“Start callin’ _you_ ‘Cap’ if that’s the standard. We need to get you a few more gallons of that tea. Gimme an update,” he demands, taking Cas’s hand across the couch and peeking under one of the bandages.

It still looks pretty bad.

“This tea was standard treatment for the punishment in the field. I’ll be-”

“Okay,” Dean gives him the time-out signal. “Use a minimum of words, not your flouncy vocab. I don’t want you to reverse your own progress, here.”

Cas smiles. “More tea later. Thanks.”

“Good. Yeah, good.” Dean feels the dread lift from himself. He didn’t realize how much he was carrying. He was worried there was permanent damage. Or, given the regular timeline of an angel’s life, he even dreaded that it might take Cas years to get his voice back.

That wouldn’t have worked.

There’s something he needs to hear.

Something like-  
Like.  
He doesn’t know.

But when he’s all in Castiel’s space and manhandling him, he’d like Cas to be able to state his limits.

He wanted to hear him when he was sewing him up. Wanted to know what he was afraid of so he could say something to dispel those fears, even if it was the standard, _We’ll figure it out_.

Cas likes to hear that, sometimes. Cas knows what that means – knows that he’s got people on his team.

And, even if he couldn’t do anything but continue bandaging and sewing, he still wanted to hear Cas. Would still rather hear him say he was in pain than know he had to keep enduring in silence, screaming in his own head.

From his experience with Michael, Dean knows what it’s like to have your words taken away from you. To be gagged, drowned out. In pain and unable to say so. Crying out at the top of your lungs and completely silent for it.

He can’t help himself. He scoots closer and checks the bandage at Cas’s neck.

Also not much progress under there and he hisses a little when Dean accidentally puts too much pressure on the wrappings.

“Sorry,” he whispers, pats the back of Cas’s head. “Sorry.”

He looks to Dean’s eyes and _makes the noise_. A little whine. Knowing exactly what it will do to him.

Dean is aware of it the whole time, but reaches and drags his other hand up to check the last bandage isn’t bled through.

He does kiss over it, this time, and pulls Cas’s hand to his neck. Lets him hang on and settle in and lean to rest against him.

“I gotcha. You’re not gonna hurt forever, I promise.”

They both know that’s true. It’s not necessary to say it. But if Cas wants to hear it, Dean wants to give the words.

Dean might want to repeat them, in fact, so his brain buys what his mouth is selling.

Because, after a while, it ain’t enough to hold him close and let him watch tv in the quiet.

Dean’s hands want proof. His hands wander.

He feels Cas’s lungs. His back goes up-down as he breathes.

After years of sharing space, Dean knows the breathing isn’t even required, but Cas does it. He lets his vessel move through its human functions. He relaxes in it to the extent that he seeks the same comforts a human would.

This connection.

Throwing a hug around Dean’s neck when they make it back home and they didn’t expect to.

Steadying his hand around a cup of coffee when he’s really so exhausted he shouldn’t be pounding more.

Settling practically half-on-top-of Dean while they pay half-attention to the show, worrying about their family, far away and lost. Far away and hunting.

This was a bad idea.

It’s the second time he’s tried to watch this show. He still doesn’t seem to have enough attention span.

It isn’t just Dean’s hands, now, either. He chases this... light scent. Not Cas’s hair, specifically, or the skin of his shoulder. It’s somewhere behind his ear.

It smells like home. Like the pounded old leather of the car seats, the complimentary soap they use at the motels, the pillows here in the bunker. Home.

“What the hell is that,” he mutters.

Cas doesn’t acknowledge the rambling. He lets Dean inhale at his neck, though. Under the coppery blood, the ozone of the blessed weapon’s damage to his grace. Dean can _feel it_ , hot like a fever, and _smell it_ , like the stiff, starched shirts all the stuck-up angels used to wear.

And up just a little, beyond the wounded skin. That Cas smell, instead. That sense of home bending him closer. That weird fucking sense of rightness just completely out of nowhere.

His bandaged hand clings to Dean’s sleeve.

“I know, baby,” he mindlessly kisses Cas’s ear and holds him tighter. “You’ll be okay.”

He turns to Dean. To press his head to Dean’s mouth like he’s _asking_ and Dean is only too willing to linger there, lips against him, eyes drifting shut.

Kissing where he did before. Then down his nose, like earlier this morning. Then his mouth because he feels perfect and Dean can’t help it.

Kisses the end of his nose and then his mouth again and this time Cas kisses back. Grips his sleeve to keep him close and.

Dean just gets _so_ lost in it. No objection that’s ever stopped him before can be found. He’s kissing his best friend who needs to heal, right now. Whose neck hurts, so Dean cups the side of his head, carefully. Stays fully aware of the movement of his wounded hands. Makes no sudden movements that would stress or hurt him.

The tea doesn’t taste so bad from here.

Dean wants to press him into a bath of it, if it will help. He wants these bandages off. Wants his family to feel whole; wants this without pain.

 _Oh, baby,_ he breathes against Cas’s mouth and lets him draw away. Doesn’t use his hands to keep him there if he won’t stay.

But he doesn’t let Cas go, either.

“I know I will. Be okay, I mean.” Cas takes a breath. Wavers and looks guilty. “You don’t have to-”

“Take care of my family?” Dean scoffs, almost laughing. “Jesus. Don’t you get it? Some days that’s all I want out of life. I mean. Yeah, I wanna hit the road and go ruin a monster’s day, but.” He does laugh, now, realizing his own truth given voice. “Come on, Cas. I mean,” he whispers. “Come on. You know me. Right?”

He winces a little. “I know you didn’t want this before,” he admits.

“Fuck it,” Dean shakes his head. Presses a kiss to his mouth again. “That was then. I’ve been wrong plenty.”

Cas closes his eyes like he can’t help it, either. Kisses back, leaning in. Lets Dean take his weight and curve him closer.

“You know what this means,” Dean mentions quietly.

“Hm?” Cas drifts, still worn and hurt, to rest on his shoulder.

“You can’t pull a move like Jack did ever again. You can’t walk around wounded and not tell me. You can’t hide it, anymore. Not ever again. You keep comin’ to me like it’s cute to let me panic about it. Or look after you or whatever.”

“But you like it too much,” Cas concludes. “But you want that all the time. For real.”

“For real,” Dean agrees. “You gonna keep fucking teasing me about it?”

“I wasn’t.” He’s quiet for a minute and when Dean glances down he has a guilty look. “Mm. Sam was.”

... “Sam was?”

“Sam knows _eeeeeverything_ ,” he mocks, rolling his eyes. “Sam kept pushing me and I was trying to prove you wouldn’t.” He sighs. “Wouldn’t... bat an eye. Wouldn’t care. You would call me a crybaby and tell me to _man up_ and move on with your life.”

Dean snorts. “Little shit.”

“He is,” Cas agrees.

“You know what else?”

“I can stop getting my ass kicked in the first place?” his voice is getting raspier.

“Nailed it,” Dean nods.

Cas _pouts_. Full-on pouts. Boo-boo eyes and snuggling closer.

“Look. If you get killed again because you’re trying to get me to play nursemaid-”

He whines, wordlessly, and holds his neck like it’s hurting him again.

Dean feels a _physical tug_ on his heart that jerks it clear up into his throat and kicks all his protective instincts into high gear. It’s really unfair.

But it’s also a beautifully simple excuse to pet Cas’s head and hold him. Hug him and kiss his temple.

Sam and the team will call, eventually. Panicked about Jack. It will propel them off the couch and out of the bunker before Dean’s slept. Before Cas has had enough tea to keep his voice intact.

The grind won’t stop. It won’t ever be as simple as waking up in the sunshine to see someone who loves him leaning over him, waiting to be doted on and cared for.

God.

He wishes it were, though.

It’s hard enough to find somebody. To keep somebody. To make them wanna test your limits until you respond.

To find someone who will let you care for them the way you want – encompassing and with this mad Winchester devotion, stuck in drive and the brake lines cut.

To find a friend who doesn’t play games with this loyalty. Who gives things up to keep you. Who _dies_ to make you safe.

Listen. It ain’t like he’s gonna thank Sam. Dean won’t abide hearing even one _I told you so_.

But you gotta admit, there’s nothing more _Winchester_ than his brother making a bet with his angel that his self-control is going to collapse from gruff hugs to stunning fucking tenderness.

Dean’s got some big tells and some _unbearable_ habits. Of course Sam would win that bet.

Cas looks up and waits for a kiss he seems to know he’s gonna get.

Good thing Dean doesn’t mind.

«»

Cas hones his skills, as any good soldier might.

When he’s out of coffee and Dean’s not, he drops his head to Dean’s shoulder and wordlessly _laments_.

They have to share because Dean really fucking needs the caffeine right now, but Sam gets his first hefty dose of regret when Dean’s the one pinned to his chair by a recovering celestial being, so he’s gotta get his happy ass up to make the next pot of joe.

Judging by the strangled noise of objection he makes before slamming the motel room door shut, Sam also regrets it when Dean has to do his diligence, sit Cas on his lap, and make sure every one of his Thorn wounds gets its own kiss so he _feels all better_ for now.

Sure, Dean would like to spare his family suffering at every opportunity, but Sam doesn’t count right now, so, when they think they have Jack’s location pinpointed and have to leave Cas in the car so his grace is out of range, he also suddenly finds it hard to leave Cas behind without ten, twenty kisses, calling him “baby” in a woobie voice and tucking him into the back seat, nice and safe.

He makes Sam stand there and wait the whole time. Carrying bags of all their equipment. (Not that they’ll actually need it, you know, just to _be sure_.)

Cas hams it up right back at him, whispering in his broken voice how he should be careful and that he’ll _miss him so much_. And while Dean might really corner him later and kiss the fucking life out of him, for now he just rots Sam’s teeth out his head, telling Cas it’ll all be okay and _I’ll be right back, sweetheart. Love you, honey. Sit right there, sugar._

“Ugh!!” Sam makes a gagging noise and finally starts trooping off into the clearing.

Dean laughs.

Little _shit_.

«»

When things are back to normal (normal as they can be, around here), Cas drops heavy into the chair next to him in the library. Holds his hand out. His finger. Holds his finger out.

“That’s the wrong one for a fuck-you,” Dean comments.

“Splinter,” Cas says.

Dean squints and sets his book aside. Finds it and picks at his finger until he has to drag the dungeon keys across the table and use the multitool on the keyring to pull the splinter out.

Kisses his finger and lets him go.

“I’m hungry,” Cas reports.

He isn’t. He doesn’t actually _get_ hungry. Sometimes he just wants coffee, but other times he wants Dean to make everybody a big smorgasbord for dinner and scarf off his plate.

Of course, that also means he’s feeding Mom and Bobby and Sam and Jack and Cas and the whole fucking team and that thrills him. They enjoy it. They go to bed stuffed. Or hit the road for their next hunt all fueled up and alert and ready to go.

Dean thinks about it. He thinks about how much pasta he’s got sitting around right now. He thinks about the pork he got on sale. He thinks about how Jack tried a cinnamon roll and suddenly couldn’t believe there was anything better on earth and how Dean would very much like to knock some store-bought shit off that particular pedestal.

“Dean,” Cas presses close and nestles his head onto Dean’s shoulder.

“Yeah. Yeah, gimme a minute to think about it.”

“You can think about it while you come help me take off my tie.”

‘Help’ him ‘take off his tie.’

When he has to ‘help’ Cas with his clothes, Dean lately realized, that’s code for sex.

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that,” he knows his eyes are wide and he’s staring at Cas at this close angle in a really weird way but, like, come on. It was a pretty _recent_ revelation.

Last time he said there was something in his shoe and that was code for heavy makeouts and humping against the dresser. He wonders what the _tie_ is code for.

He stands and holds his hand out. Waits for Cas to rise and take it and follow him. Opens the door for him and locks it behind them. Sits Cas on the bed and proceeds to help him take his tie off without tightening the knot into a mess.

“Dean?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks for taking care of me.”

Dean coughs a little because he gets a boner faster from that than from thinking about the _tie code_ and locking the bedroom door.

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

“Dean?” he gently pauses Dean, taking his wrists. “I think I need you now.”

He can’t move. He can’t help that his mouth waters. He can’t help but think about pinning Cas to the bed and praising him for holding still and letting Dean stroke him, hot and close; not rolling his hips into his hand, just letting Dean take care of him.

And he knows, okay? He knows he’s being specifically targeted, here.

He knows Cas found his buttons and he’s hitting them each in the right order.

He knows that Cas found out his true weakness is seeing his kin all safe and huddled up at home, at night. Making sure Sammy never falls into a funk again, holding him high above the brink because he doesn’t deserve to always be teetering over it. Keeping the team and Bobby alive because this second chance is _precious_ and very fucking fragile. Making sure his Mom never hurts again. Making sure Cas is never-ever alone again, rare bird that he is, one of the few remaining angels. A limited edition, one-of-a-kind, best fucking friend, drawing him up onto the bed to kneel over him. Letting Dean arch above him and kiss him reverently and strip him slow. Pull the human sensations of intimacy over him slowly, carefully, like tucking him in gently.

Human things, to Cas’s experience, have hurt. They meant losing his wings, his grace. Slowing him down, filling him with unstoppable emotion and even sex and closeness that resulted in shame, pain, sadness.

Dean wants to shove that all away. Override it.

Cas is far from weak. He is a fucking powerhouse. More often than not, Cas is the one cleaning them all up after a fight.

If he wants to play small and sad and broken, though, and have Dean show him what softness and care can do, that ain’t ever gonna be a problem.

That will always be a blessing.

Dean scoops Cas’s head in his hands and draws him up for slow, quiet, lingering presses of lips. Kisses him deep only when he’s good and ready. Spreads Cas out on the bed when he finally loses himself enough to strain towards him.

He answers when Cas cries out.

Will always come when he calls.

**Author's Note:**

> Purgatory Jar/Elena created the art this fic was based on. Please consider supporting our amazing SPN fan artists. Elena can be found here: https://purgatory-jar.tumblr.com/


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